Last week the Latvian presidency hosted a well attendant BALTFISH meeting in Riga. During the Forum meeting the final proposal on a discard ban plan for the Baltic Sea were discussed. An elaborated draft of Fisheries control strategy were presented by Sweden and Denmark presented proposed Terms of References for fisheries management in Natura 2000 areas. Finally, some aspects of the impending multi-species plan for the Baltic Sea were briefly discussed.
Mr Normunds Riekstins, Director of the Fisheries Department at the Latvian Ministry of Agriculture, chaired the BALTFISH Forum meeting (29 April) and presented the discard ban plan for the Baltic Sea, developed by the Baltic Members States forming BALTFISH. An earlier proposal was circulated for comments by stakeholders (thereby the Baltic Sea Advisory Council, BSAC) and a revised version of the plan was presented and discussed. Mr Riekstins stated the importance to have a harmonized management throughout the whole Baltic region and also declared that the species list of fish species to be covered by the ban is going to be broader and from 2017 also include several non-quota species that are important for commercial fishery, however not included today. The deadline for the BALTFISH to deliver the final discard ban plan to the Commission is in June this year.
Sea trout, previously proposed to be included from the start of the implementation of the ban (that is 1st of January 2015), was suggested to be included from 2017. This was regretted by several NGO representatives due to control issues and the importance to reduce misreporting of salmon as sea-trout in the salmon fishery. The Minimum Conservation Reference Size (MCRS, equivalent to Minimum Landing Size) for salmon was also proposed to be reduced from 60 cm to 50 cm.
Representatives from the fisheries industry wanted to postpone the inclusion of Baltic cod in the discard ban until 2017 so that the fleet will have time to adjust for this large differences in fisheries management, which is in contrast to the obligation to discard unwanted catch today. NGO representatives, on the other hand, argued for including cod as planned (that is from 2015), since there is an immediate need for more accurate data on bycatch of undersized cod so that the current very imprecise assessment for especially the Eastern Baltic cod stock can be improved.
There were different opinions on how to categorize seal damaged fish. Fisheries representatives argued that seal damaged fish should be considered as a part of the natural mortality since they are eaten by their natural predators, which was also in line with the main BALTFISH proposal. Contrary, environmental NGO representatives wanted seal damaged fish to be classified as part of fishing mortality. The reasoning for this is that fish would not be exposed the same way to seals if they are not trapped in fishing gears and since catches in commercial gears does not reflect the natural diet of seal (for example, it is exceptional that seals are able to catch large salmons in a natural way). However, environmental NGOs accept to use the “de minimis rule”, not counting seal damaged fish against the quota, as long as it is below 5 % as an acceptable solution and that all damaged fish is recorded in log books; which is in line with an alternative BALTFISH proposal if the EC does not accept their main proposal.
Too technical measures in the Baltic Sea
It was raised, both from the industry and from NGO representatives that the very detailed technical rules for the Baltic Sea, which has given little opportunity for fishermen to develop and test innovations that would improve e.g. selectivity in fishing gears, also has hampered innovative scientific initiative. They stressed that money from the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) should be used for advances in this area as well as to further improve cooperation between fishermen and researchers. The opportunity to use EMFF support to technical adjustment to avoid discard was also confirmed by Ilona Jepsina, Head of Unit DG MARE, who also stated that it is also in agreement with article 14 in the Common Fisheries Policy.
Sweden also presented a background paper of a strategy to control the landing obligation and the requirement to document all catches in the Baltic Sea. They presented a four level approach to develop the strategy, including evaluations on: management targets for the whole region and for different fishing fleets; control difficulties in different fisheries, as well as pros and cons using different surveillance systems. Most of the discussion was on what basis some fisheries was classified as high/low risk fisheries related to control and documentation (for example salmon fisheries in the southern Baltic Sea was classified as low risk which prompted some NGOs to react).
Fishery management in Natura 2000 areas proposal
Denmark presented a proposal on T o R for fishery management in Natura 2000 areas. According to the proposal so called Fisheries Environmental Groups (FEG) would be formed by initiated Member States on an ad hoc basis. FEGs would produce recommendations on area specific fisheries management and report to standing Technical Expert groups within BALTFISH. According to the Danish administration environmental and fisheries interests should be considered all the way although the initiatives for the discussions coming from the fisheries administration. However, the German environmental administration questioned that this structure actually provided a platform for a level playing field between nature conservation and fisheries interest and furthermore stressed that environmental and fisheries authorities must play equal roles, inter alia to secure that EU environmental directives and legislation are complied. Also the representation in the FEGs were questioned by the Chair of the BS AC who emphasized the importance to utilize expertise and experiences from NGOs and fisheries organisations on the matter. Several NGOs as well as the HELCOM secretariat stressed the importance to utilize already started initiatives within the HELCOM cooperation, to use the outcomes of the BALTFIMPA project and especially the generic tool on fisheries in Marine Protected Areas developed within the project.
BALTFISH response on technical measures
Mr Riekstins informed about the BALTFISH response to the EC questionnaire on technical measures for the development of multi-annual plans. The Fisheries Secretariat has together with Coalition Clean Baltic produced a report in which specific shortcomings and considerations of the development of a multi-species plan for the Baltic Sea are highlighted and took the opportunity to briefly present the main messages of the report at the meeting. These mainly relates to mainstreaming the objectives of the management plans to EU environmental directives and legislation (especially to the Marine Framework Strategy Directive) which have implications on ICES advice on fishing mortality, increased focus on the ecological functions of especially Baltic cod, and the need to include more elaborate modelling as well as improved data on for example discard to produce more reliable projections.
The BALTFISH High Level Group meeting was held the following day. According to the agenda the same topics were discussed but no official minutes are available.